Candidate Donald Trump got NATO right. When it includes states like Montenegro it no longer serves America’s defense. He should speak on behalf of the American people who are expected to pay for everyone else.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. The magazine annually singles out one person or group of people that “for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year.”

The fact Trump wants to build the military substantially presents him with a challenge and an opportunity. He is no respecter of Washington's conventions and taboos. So, as he pursues his plan to make the U.S. military great again, we hope he defies the bureaucracy and begins the process of ending its massive waste and mismanagement.

All this fussing and worry on the conservative side about Trump selling us out is not entirely unjustified – it’s still a possibility – but it seems more likely than ever that Trump intends to succeed by keeping his promises. And that has Democrats worried. They are not worried that Trump will be a terrible president. They are worried that he will be a great one.

Donald Trump isn’t transitioning the same as other past presidents and the media hates it. Plus, Trump’s favorability rating is surging and so is the Electoral College’s, and, How important is “diversity” to Trump’s Supreme Court nominations?

China can choke North Korea to death. But China can also step back and let Pyongyang become a nuclear-weapons state, though that could mean Seoul and Tokyo following suit, which would be intolerable to Beijing. Before we go down this road, President-elect Trump and his foreign-policy team ought to think through just where it leads—and where it might end.

Now it’s the Democrats who are lepers in the land. The same wise men who were writing obituaries for the Grand Old Party are recycling them as obsequies for the party of the people. That would be the party that lost the White House, the Senate, the House and so many governors, mayors and state houses that everybody but Jill Stein has quit counting.

Now that Dr. Ben Carson has accepted Donald Trump’s offer to join his administration as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development we hope he understands that running HUD isn’t brain surgery, but it will still require a team of skilled surgeons, like Wendell Cox, and CHQ contributors John Anthony and Tom DeWeese, who know the issues and are prepared to excise the cancerous anti-constitutional policies Barack Obama has put in place.

Ben Carson at HUD would seem to be the perfect way to infuriate the left. Plus, Conservatives are excited over the chance to end the exile and finally make a difference, and, The crucial Trump cabinet choice we hardly ever hear about: EPA Administrator.

If confirmed, Tom Price will be the best qualified HHS secretary in a generation. His nomination has been received enthusiastically by the health care industry. Moreover, unlike Kathleen Sebelius and Sylvia Burwell, he spent twenty years actually treating patients. He knows the system and why Obamacare isn’t working. If the Democrats successfully Bork him, it means that they can’t be trusted with even a modicum of power.

We urge CHQ readers to call Congress (the Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044) to tell your Senators and Representative to oppose funding Obama’s plan to import more jihad to America through the “refugee” resettlement program.

Donald Trump’s outsider- heavy governing style already represents a departure from both parties. Plus, Rumors have it Trump may choose a surfing dark horse for Secretary of State, and, Pence’s heavy responsibility in the transition will continue in the administration.

Trump's approach is reminiscent of Pat Buchanan's 1996 advice to the Republican Party: "Marry the growth agenda of Ronald Reagan to the America First philosophy of the four men whose faces are carved on Mount Rushmore — and the future is ours." It is too soon to know what the future holds for Trump, but his sales pitch for the next four years and beyond is already taking shape.

It is obvious to everyone except the myopic Washington press, fumbling about like punch-drunk prizefighters too often concussed to swing at a moving target accurately, that Donald Trump is preparing to come out of the gate like a fire engine and join Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan as a transformative president.

Mr. Trump’s latest triumph is an example of how he will lead. He is results-driven, an unconventional leader who refuses to accept business as usual and a slow-moving bureaucracy. The direct contact with businesses like Carrier shows how he can get results. His style of leadership is already forcing U.S. companies to re-evaluate their own plans and adjusting how they will do business.

Reason for the panic -- the dawning realization, repressed and often unrecognized though it may be, that Donald Trump may even a be a good president, possibly a great one. Then what? If anything could cause panic among liberals, progressives, and the media (apologies for the redundancy), that's it.

Did Newt Gingrich go too far in criticizing Mitt Romney for “sucking up” to Trump? Plus, Trump’s economic team is woefully short on government experience – but that’s a good thing, and, Searching for a replacement for the late Justice Scalia just became a little easier.

Memo to the rest of the planet: Stop panicking over the victory of Donald Trump. His “America First” agenda is not about abandoning the free world. If anything, it is about saving the free world—from itself.

The Trump transition has been talking to and appointing some of the most accomplished and serious individuals in Republican and conservative politics. Donald Trump isn’t pulling rabbits out of a hat. Somebody at team Trump has a first-rate Rolodex.

The familiar partisan lines of the past 20 years have been redrawn, and now we have a more downscale Republican Party and a Democratic Party confined to its coastal and campus cocoons. We'll see how that works out.